Lover, Stranger

by Amanda Stevens

  “You said earlier that you weren’t in any position to judge me. That goes both ways, Grace.”

  When she looked up at him, his eyes were so dark and so haunted, she thought for a moment she was staring at her own reflection. She took a step back from him, and he let her go.

  He walked to the window to stare out into the darkness. “I think I may be exactly the person you need to talk to.” There was something about his voice that was different.

  Grace shivered, staring as his profile. After a moment, she said, “My father was the agent who arrested Reardon. The FBI had been after him for a long time, years. After he left the military, he became a killer for hire, an assassin at first, taking out government officials in foreign countries and certain high-powered businessmen for money. Then he fell in with some zealots in the Middle East and discovered they were willing to pay big bucks to someone with his expertise to carry out their dirty work. The notoriety appealed to Reardon, as did the money. And the killings.”

  She paused, trying to get her thoughts in order. Trying to dispel the tormented images twisting and turning in her mind. “My father tracked him for over two years and was finally able to arrest him. But before Reardon could stand trial, he escaped. I’d heard my father mention his name at the time of the arrest, but he never told us about Reardon’s escape. I guess he didn’t want to worry us, and I don’t think he really believed Reardon would come after him. He thought Reardon would flee the country, but my father underestimated Reardon’s obsession with order, with tying up loose ends.”

  Ethan glanced at her then, but he still said nothing.

  Grace took a long breath and continued. “He got into our house one day when everyone was gone and planted a bomb. He rigged all the doors and windows with explosive devices that were wired in to the main timer. When he detonated the bomb, the other devices were then triggered to explode if anyone tried to open the doors or windows from the inside or the out. It was an unbelievably intricate design and one he’d used before, on an Italian businessman’s home several years before that. When the bomb exploded, the whole house erupted into flames. My mother and father were on the ground level, but my sister was trapped upstairs. I saw her at the window. Her hair and clothes were on fire—”

  Grace broke off abruptly as the images bombarded her. Ethan had turned to face her, but he didn’t move toward her. “I can’t imagine what that must have been like for you.”

  Grace shrugged. “No one can. I arrived right after the first bomb exploded, but the fire spread so fast, they didn’t have a chance. The booby-trapped doors and windows were almost overkill.”

  “Where were you?” Ethan finally asked. It was the question Grace had been dreading.

  She squeezed her eyes shut as if she could somehow stop the screams inside her head. “I was with him. I was with Trevor Reardon.” She put her hands to her face and turned her back to Ethan.

  The room was so quiet, Grace could hear the blood pounding in her ears. She sensed Ethan’s shock, the deep revulsion he must feel for what she’d just told him.

  After a moment of stunned silence, she felt his hands on her wrists, pulling her hands away from her face. “Tell me the rest,” he commanded softly.

  Grace shuddered. “I’d met him a few days before the fire. I realized afterward that he’d sought me out. It was all part of his game, the ultimate way to get back at my father, and I was so gullible. So stupid. I fell for everything he told me because I wanted to believe an older, sophisticated man could find me special and desirable. He seduced me,” she said, trying to swallow past the nausea that rose in her throat. “But I let him. I wanted it.”

  When she would have turned away, Ethan clung to her hands. “How old were you?”

  “Old enough to know better.”

  “How old?”

  She drew a long breath. “Seventeen.”

  “You were a kid, Grace. You were no match for Reardon.”

  “But I should have known,” she said in anguish. “I should have known who he was, what he planned to do. I should have been able to stop him.”

  A tear slid down her face, the drop of moisture as foreign to her as the look of compassion in Ethan’s eyes. Releasing one of her hands, he wiped the tear away with his fingertip, the gesture so gentle and so caring that Grace felt more tears, deeper tears rising inside her. With sheer force of will, she blinked them back.

  “You’ve carried this guilt inside you all these years,” Ethan said, staring down at her. “Don’t you think it’s time to let it go? Don’t you think it’s time to forgive yourself for having once been young and naive?”

  “I didn’t just go out and skip school,” she said almost angrily. “I didn’t stay out past my curfew. My whole family was killed while I—”

  “There was nothing you could have done to stop Reardon. Deep down inside, you have to know that. He would have done what he did whether you had been with him or not. The only difference was, you stayed alive. And I think that’s what you haven’t been able to forgive yourself for.”

  Grace bowed her head, overcome with emotion. She couldn’t say a word, couldn’t deny or acknowledge what he was saying. All she could do was let him reach for her gently and draw her into the warm circle of his arms.

  A part of her wanted to resist, because she knew she was vulnerable tonight in a way she hadn’t been in years. She needed Ethan’s arms around her more desperately than she would ever have thought possible. And that scared her. Terrified her.

  Neither of them said anything for a very long time. They stood motionless, Ethan’s arms around her while Grace battled the demons inside her that had threatened to destroy her for years.

  After a while, the demons didn’t seem quite so powerful. The images inside her mind weren’t quite so strong. Grace lifted her face to Ethan’s. “I’ve never told anyone what happened back then. There are those in the Bureau who know. Myra Temple, the woman who saved my life when Reardon came back for me, and Joe Huddleston. A few others who knew because they were around when it happened. But I’ve never been able to tell anyone else. I’ve never trusted anyone enough.”

  Something flashed in Ethan’s eyes, an emotion so dark, Grace shivered. “I hope you’ve done the right thing telling me.”

  She pulled back a little to stare up at him. “I don’t understand.”

  He hesitated. “I hope I’m worthy of your trust.”

  Grace knew instantly what he meant. He was no longer thinking about what she’d told him, but about his own past. About the things he’d done. The demons he now had to battle.

  She reached up and touched his face with her fingertips. “I meant what I said earlier. I know there’s goodness in you. And now you know about the darkness in me. Does it change the way you feel?”

  He almost smiled at that. “If anything, it only strengthens the bond between us. It makes me want you even more.”

  The fire in his eyes was suddenly an emotion Grace did recognize. Passion. The powerful kind. The reckless kind. The kind that matched the slow heat building inside her.

  With a sense of inevitability that was almost stunning, Grace watched as he lowered his head toward hers. Their gazes clung for a long, scorching moment before his lips touched hers. Grace’s eyes drifted closed as a shudder ripped through her. Ethan’s kiss was powerful, electric, breathtaking. An explosion of desire that made her knees grow weak and her heartbeat thunder.

  This was not attraction, she thought weakly. This was not chemistry. This was...destiny. This was a moment that had to be, no matter what the consequences.

  She wrapped her arms around his neck and threaded her fingers through his hair. Ethan’s own hands splayed against her back, holding her closely for a moment before starting to move over her in slow, deliberate strokes. Her back, her hips, her breasts, and then upward to cup her face. He broke the kiss to whisper against her mouth, “God, Grace...”

  She couldn’t have put it more eloquently herself. She pulled him to her, kissing h
im with an urgency that left them both gasping for breath. He pushed her back on the bed and moved over her, his fingers ripping loose the buttons on her pajamas so they could lay skin to skin. Heartbeat to heartbeat.

  Grace shivered as his body molded to hers, as his mouth ground into hers. She accepted the assault, welcomed it. Wanted more of it.

  They rolled over, and Grace was suddenly on top, staring down at him. His eyes were heavy-lidded and seductive, his mouth a sensuous invitation. She kissed the scar above his brow, his temple, then skimmed along the side of his face to tease his earlobe with her tongue.

  He groaned and shuddered as she pressed her body into his and moved against him. After a few moments, he rolled them again, and now he was back on top, back in charge, and Grace was pliant beneath him. And then he did to her exactly what she had done to him.

  The teasing became almost unbearable. The buildup almost the release. Grace’s fingers moved to the buttons at the front of his jeans, but to her surprise, his hand closed over hers, stopping her.

  His lips hovered over hers, a breathless heartbeat away. Then he lifted himself, so that for a moment they were staring into each other’s eyes. His gaze was still clouded with passion, intense with longing, but another emotion simmered just beneath the surface. An emotion that made Grace almost gasp when she saw it.

  Regret. Maybe even guilt.

  She lay staring up at him, helpless with her own desire.

  “I can’t do this,” he said.

  A rush of humiliation swept over her. “What?”

  He lifted himself off her and sat on the edge of the bed, his back to her. He put his hands to his face and scrubbed. “I can’t do this to you.”

  Grace sat up, too, wrapping her pajama top around her and drawing her knees up to her chest. She rested her cheek on her knees, saying nothing. Embarrassment heated her skin, but it was a remorse that wasn’t pure because even in the face of rejection, she still wanted him. Her body still quivered with need.

  “I told you before that I’m not the man you think I am.” He turned his head slightly, so that she could see a little of his profile. “I deliberately let you misunderstand what I meant. You think there’re two sides to my personality—a good one and a dark one. And now that I’ve lost my memory, the good one is winning out. But you’re wrong, Grace. Dead wrong.”

  He turned on the bed to face her, and Grace lifted her head to stare at him. “What do you mean?”

  “I’m not Ethan Hunter.”

  Grace sat up, forgetting about the torn-away buttons on her top. The silk parted, and for just an instant, she saw Ethan’s gaze waver. Then he glanced away, running a hand through his dark hair. “I’m not Dr. Ethan Hunter,” he repeated.

  Grace said breathlessly, “If you’re not Ethan Hunter, then who are you?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t even know what I am. What I may have done. When I woke up in the hospital a few days ago, the only thing I could remember at first was running through the jungle, being pursued by men with guns. Those men were the Mexican police, and they shot me. Here.” He touched a spot on his side hidden by his jeans. “I fell from a cliff. When I came to in the hospital and found out who I was—or who I thought I was—I convinced myself that the whole episode was just a dream. The scar on my side was from the appendectomy I’d supposedly had recently. And everything else started to fall into place. I remembered then that I’d been in a clinic, that a man wearing a ski mask had been standing over me with a gun. I remembered Amy walking in, and then the fight I had with the gunman. He knocked me unconscious, and I assumed that’s how I got the amnesia.”

  Grace stared at him in shock, not knowing where he was going with his story, but sensing it might be a place she didn’t want to follow. “That’s what everyone assumed. I don’t understand, Ethan. Why do you think you’re not Dr. Hunter?”

  “Because I don’t think the skills of a surgeon, especially one as talented as I’m supposed to be, would be something I would forget.”

  Grace frowned. “You can’t know that for sure.”

  “Then how do you explain the other things that I didn’t forget. Like how to use a weapon.” To demonstrate his point, he picked up Grace’s gun from the nightstand, ejected the clip, pulled back the slide to remove the bullet from the chamber, and then slammed home the magazine once again. He stared at the weapon for a moment, then laid it aside with a visible shudder.

  “A lot of people know how to use a gun.”

  He stared at her. “So you’re saying you don’t think it’s strange that I remember how to do what I just did with your gun, but I wouldn’t have the faintest idea what to do with a scalpel if you handed me one right now.”

  Grace shrugged. “Amnesia is a tricky thing. I’m just saying that from what you’ve told me so far—”

  “There’s more,” he said darkly. He got up and started to pace the room. “The man I dream about in the jungle—I know his fear. I know he’s me. But his face isn’t the one I see when I look in the mirror.”

  A cold chill slipped over Grace. “But maybe it is just a dream.”

  “Maybe. But how do you explain the fact that there are dozens of pairs of shoes in my closet, and not a single one fits me. They’re all too small by at least half a size.”

  Grace couldn’t explain that. The chill inside her deepened. “Are you sure? You tried them all on?”

  “Every last one of them. The clothes aren’t a perfect fit, either, but I attributed that to a weight loss following surgery. But I can’t explain the shoes. Can you?”

  Grace wrapped her pajama top more tightly around her. “There has to be a logical explanation.”

  “And then there’s the gun,” Ethan said, as if he hadn’t heard her. “I found the pistol you saw earlier, in the safe downstairs. I knew the moment I saw it that the gun belonged to me. I knew exactly what it would feel like to shoot it, the accuracy of the aim, the pull of the trigger. Everything. I took it to a gun shop here in town and found out that it was probably customized by a place in Arkansas that does special orders for police SWAT teams, the FBI, and some of the elite forces of the military. Like the Navy SEALs, for instance.”

  “The Navy SEALs—” Grace broke off, gasping. She stared at Ethan in open shock. “My God. What are you saying?”

  He stopped pacing and turned to watch her for a long moment before moving toward the bed. Grace had to fight the urge to retreat.

  He placed his hands on the bed and leaned toward her, his eyes those of a stranger. “I’m saying that I don’t know who I am. I don’t know how to explain everything that’s happened to me, the dreams I have, the shoes that don’t fit, the gun that was custom-made for me. Even the connection you and I seem to have.”

  He paused, his gaze intensifying on her until Grace’s breath became suspended somewhere in her throat. “What I’m saying is that for all I know, I could be the man you’re looking for. I could be Trevor Reardon.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Grace put a hand to her mouth to hold back the scream that tore at her throat. She stared at the space where Ethan had stood only moments before, and nausea rose in her stomach like a tidal wave.

  He wasn’t Trevor Reardon. She knew it couldn’t be true, and yet the moment Ethan had said the words, the doubts had begun to mount inside her. She hadn’t been able to hold back her horrified gasp, and when Ethan had seen her face, he’d turned and strode from the room, slamming the door behind him.

  The sound still echoed in the silent room. His words still rang in her ears. Grace shook her head, trying to dispel the almost hypnotic effect his words had had on her. She couldn’t move, couldn’t think, couldn’t reason.

  Weakly she reached for her purse on the nightstand. Taking out her cell phone, she dialed Myra’s number. The throaty voice answered on the second ring.

  Without preamble, Grace said, “Did you hear back from the fingerprints you sent to the lab?”

  If Myra had been sleeping, she gave no indi
cation of it. She sounded wide awake and fully alert. “The ones we lifted from Dr. Hunter’s clinic?” Grace heard Myra’s lighter click open as she lit up a cigarette. “Strange that you should be calling about that.”

  Grace was instantly alarmed. “Why?”

  Myra hesitated. “Actually, we lifted several sets of prints from Dr. Hunter’s office, some from around the desk area that we were pretty certain were his. But just as a control, we also took some from the water glass in his hospital room.” She paused to take a long drag on her cigarette. Grace wanted to scream in frustration. “When we ran all the prints through the computer, we found that the ones from the glass were flagged.”

  Grace sat on the edge of the bed, frowning. “Flagged? By whom?”

  “I don’t know yet.”

  “Wait a minute,” Grace said. “Are you saying the prints from the glass didn’t match any of the prints in Dr. Hunter’s office?”

  “No, they did. Only, the prints that were a match didn’t belong to Dr. Hunter.”

  Grace gripped the phone until her knuckles hurt. “Myra, are you saying the man in this house with me isn’t Ethan Hunter?”

  There was another long pause. Then Myra said slowly, “It’s possible.”

  Grace’s breath rushed from her lungs in a long, painful swish. “Just when the hell were you going to tell me?”

  “As soon as I had all the facts. Listen, Grace, I just got this information myself a little while ago. I didn’t know what to make of it. I’ve been trying to find out what I could from the Information Division, but they haven’t been exactly forthcoming. It’s all hush-hush. I don’t understand what it all means yet, but Connelly said the lab is suddenly crawling with agents.”

  “FBI?”

  “He doesn’t think so.”

  “Then who?”

  “We don’t know, but if that man isn’t Ethan Hunter, then someone else is looking for him. And not only that, they want to make damned sure they know when and if someone else finds him. That’s why the prints were flagged, and now Connelly is catching hell.”